City of Ember

City of Ember (2008)


Director: Gil Kenan
Writer: Caroline Thompson (screenplay) Jeanne Duprau (book)
Starring: Harry Treadaway, Saoirse Ronin, Bill Murray, Martin Landau, Tim Robbins has a couple lines


Synopsis
to preserve mankind "the builders" built a city underground with instructions on how to get back above ground after 200 years. the instructions are lost after some time, and the underground city of ember begins to fall apart. blackouts and lack of food and corrupt government and all that. a girl and boy put together what's going on and try to figure out how to get out to save the citizens of ember.

MOster
Yeah, this was alright.  It was a kids' movie, but more tolerable than may of the kids' movies I've seen recently.  The plot was pretty basic, as well it should be; and everything came together probably better than it usually does.

The child actors were probably a little above average as well, and the grownup actors were for the most part having a really good time.  I think that Bill Murray and Tim Robbins could have done a better job at wiping the smiles off of their faces.  Ditto Martin Landau.

Direction and editing were on a similar level to everything else, but where this differentiated itself from other movies with a similar target audience was in the production.  It wasn't particularly schnazzy, but it was much more consistently environmental than what I'm used to seeing.  It was clearly one kid's dream or one person telling a story rather than a series of disparate elements.

So, you could do a lot worse than to expose your children to this movie as it won't drive you insane quite so quickly.  But there's no need to watch it if you don't have kids.


The Woman
 not a bad kids movie. it held my interest. i'm sure the book is better, as they tend to be. i think there were some details left out of the movie. not super important details, just details. i would not mind if my kid watched this over and over. better this than most of the other crud that's out there for kids. good plot. good subplot message. yay for a little creativity.